Former Punahou P.E. teacher recalled last China Clipper flight

A former Hawaii resident who flew on the China Clipper's last flight in 1946 has died.

Marian R. Cook, a former physical education teacher at Punahou School, died Thursday in Bountiful, Utah.

In 1946 Cook had just graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles and received the flight to Hawaii on the China Clipper as a graduation present.

The China Clipper, a fleet of Pan American World Airways seaplanes known as the "Flying Boat," opened United States' commercial air service across the Pacific in 1935 with flights serving San Francisco, Hawaii, Wake Island, Manila, Guam and China.

Cook, then known as Marian Rynearson, recalled she landed in Honolulu on April 2, 1946, and that she was one of 14 passengers. The one-way flight cost $195, plus 29.25 tax.

"I flew out from San Francisco to visit my sister who lived here (Hawaii)," she said in a 1985 interview.

"My father always said how neat it was when you could be in L.A. and fly out to Honolulu for breakfast. It was something. It really was," she said.

She is survived by daughters Sherry and Nancy.

Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Lakeview Memorial Mortuary & Cemetery in Bountiful, Utah.